Étienne de Montauban

Étienne de Montauban (fl. 1691-1695) was a French flibustier (buccaneer), privateer, and pirate active in the Caribbean and off the west African coast. Frequently referred to as Sieur de Montauban (last name occasionally Montauband), he wrote an account of his later voyages including surviving a shipwreck.

History

Born in 1660, Montauban visited the African coast as early as 1676, “having begun to use the Seas at the Age of Sixteen.” Montauban captained La Machine off Newfoundland in 1691 after parting with Desmarestz, where he forced some French sailors into piracy, and the same year he captured an English fort when he returned to Africa's Guinea coast.

He kept La Machine through 1694 before switching to the 200-ton, 34-gun Trois Frères (Three Brothers). That February he sailed for the coast of Venezuela, raiding off Caracas. He then intercepted an English convoy bound for London, capturing its escort Loup (Wolf) and two of the cargo ships. After capturing yet another English vessel he put into Bordeaux in September to sell off his prizes and captured cargo. While in port his crew behaved riotously: “All the Nights they spent in such Divertisements as pleased them best, and the Days in running up and down the Town in Masquerade, causing themselves to be carried in Chairs, with lighted Flambeaux's at Noon Day; of which Debauches some died, while Four of my Crew fairly deserted me.”

Montauban was badly injured and thrown free but managed to cling to wreckage before some of his surviving sailors picked him up in a small boat. Nearly starved, they sailed to the African coast where they met natives with whom Montauban was familiar. After convincing them of his identity (“it was impossible for me to perswade any of them that I was Captain Montauban, so much was I disfigured”), he met a local prince who fed and clothed Montauban and his men, eventually escorting them to Cape Lopez where they secured passage to Barbados. others that he continued to captain French privateer ships as late as 1708.